


a good lot

by transtwinyards



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Character Dynamic Study seems more fitting actually, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Multi, TRK spoilers, YMMV on that henbluesey btw, like a fucking lot - Freeform, post-trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6685405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtwinyards/pseuds/transtwinyards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were all cogs in one machine that was the Ganseylike lot, well-oiled and hand-crafted, but Henry felt like the shiny new replacement.</p><p>or</p><p>the fic where Henry is not like three other people but accepts that and gradually belongs</p><p> </p><p>  <b>This has a lot of TRK spoilers, I mean that tags say it but I still feel really like I need to warn y'all about it so yeah </b></p>
            </blockquote>





	a good lot

**Author's Note:**

> Henry character study! With Gansey's lot! Yay! Really, I just finished the book. I'm still reeling from shock.

Henry Cheng was not like Ronan Lynch.

Definitively, he and Ronan were similar through and through: the parent that made deals with magic and danger equally, being middle sons loved by said parent, having a connection to dreams in some way, both had a failing at being understood in the most visceral level, the bountiful riches presented but unwanted before them, the constant want to thrive for what made them feel the purest of happiness, the mask that held back every one of these similarities.

Objectively, they were vastly different. Ronan was magic where Henry was not. Ronan skipped school where Henry did nothing but go to school. Ronan was hard where Henry was cunning. Ronan told the truth where Henry lied. Ronan owned a muscle car and drove like a man out of a Fast and Furious movie where Henry feared his Fisker like it would run him over while he was inside. Ronan and Gansey were brothers where Henry was only starting to try and get that.

Henry was not jealous that he was not like Ronan Lynch.

One fine day after graduation, Henry and Gansey set out to the Barns. Earlier, on Blue’s graduation, Ronan had told them that he had a gift for the lovely Blue Sargent herself. On the look of pride and joy barely held back on Gansey’s face, this was, apparently, highly unusual.

As they set out into the Barns in search of Ronan now, leaving Blue to wander into the Lynch house to go visit Orphan Girl. They looked through barns, one by one, presenting Henry with each instrument of wonder that Niall Lynch had dreamt.

Now that Cabeswater had collapsed to satisfy Gansey’s courts’ needs, the energy needed to manifest the forest poured both into Gansey himself and the ley line surrounding it, the Barns was awake. Inside each building was activity of the magical kind, the kind Henry had only gotten used to recently.

A teddy bear bumped into Henry’s leg just as Gansey called out, “Ronan!”

Really, after hanging around so much with the Ganseylike crowd, Henry ought to be used to it.

From behind, the sound of shoes on the wooden floorboards cracked from the ambience of the barn. Henry turned just as Gansey did to see that it was not, in fact, shoes that were making the noise, but hooves.

“Hello there, young person,” Henry struggled with whatever he could call the girl. Before, Lynch and Parrish had called her Orphan Girl but names had power in many a culture and really, as a new and still tentative part of the Ganseylike crowd, it should have been something else.

“It’s Opal,” said the girl, young and ferocious with her wild pixie cut, her accented English not easy to miss and not hard to be endeared with. Henry smiled.

He extended his fist for a bump, and she responded accordingly, on her wrist was a beaten old watch. “Of course it is. Opal, have you seen Lynch, by any chance?”

She did not respond, but she did scurry off towards another barn. Gansey and Henry ran to keep up. Clearly, she was used to running in fields where the other two were not, though she was brought into reality not even weeks ago.

Inside this other barn were multiple vehicles. Henry didn’t doubt they were the type of vehicles that Niall Lynch would have sold, but Henry also didn’t doubt that they were not for sale. He wondered if they all worked normally.

“Graduation gives me bad vibes,” Ronan said from where he was lying underneath a Chevy Impala. “I didn’t go.”

He was not wrong.

“We saw that,” Gansey responded, walking up to him. He did not seem to be mad about the fact that Ronan was not at graduation. “Parrish has your diploma, says he’ll be over after he runs an errand.”

Henry was manic with energy, swinging his arms along a beat only he could hear. Somewhere, a shoe tapped along with his, and he suspected that Opal was hiding somewhere in the barn with them. “So, where’s the gift for Third’s ant queen?”

A notebook slid out from underneath the Impala. Ronan did not.

“You should’ve been there, Lynch,” Henry filled in as Gansey leaned down to take a picture of the notebook instead of just ripping a page off. Henry found that satisfying, as if the violent ripping of paper was not a Gansey thing.

He still had a lot to learn here.

Ronan hummed noncommittally. Henry was not perturbed. “Parrish delivered this totally amazing speech, and then flipped off a whole bunch of people afterwards.”

This got Ronan out from under the Impala. He looked skeptically at Henry, like he wanted to believe this fact but did not know if he should. Henry felt proud to have gotten a reaction.

Gansey shook his head fondly at the memory. Henry found it odd that Gansey would have been fond with what Parrish had done in front of parents and teachers alike, but Henry was learning that Gansey had found a lot of things to be fond about when it was about his friends.

Gansey said, “Really, it was kind of impressive how much he looked like you just then.” Then, he flipped his phone around for Ronan to see the shaky video he took of Adam Parrish, valedictorian, flipping off his peers as he walked off the stage. The people behind him were smiling in the way that they had actually approved of this behavior, whereas there were sounds of people (possibly parents) scoffing behind Gansey Then, taking the video.

Ronan looked ferociously proud. Henry smiled at this look, then at Gansey, who seemed to look happy for Ronan.

Henry, at the time, was in the crowd, whooping his hardest as Adam had walked off the stage. Henry, in the Barns with Ronan and Gansey, laughed and said, “He’s gonna be famous.”

All three men took a moment to appreciate that thought. Ronan looked at Henry then, as if seeing Henry in a new light for the first time. Or, perhaps, it was just that he’d been underneath the Impala for an impossible amount of time and was just adjusting to the light from outside the barn. Henry did not know.

“College first, then the world,” Ronan responded, open and honest and everything Henry could not stand to be yet but is learning to become.

Henry felt like, in that moment, he and Ronan had some kind of bonding. He made sure to tell Blue this as they met up at the Camaro. Blue told them both that they should really have just sent Ronan the video instead of showing it, it would have been great fodder for Adam-and-Ronan bonding. Gansey had laughed, but it was not a mocking laugh, it was an alive laugh, it was Gansey knowing everything would be fine, it was Gansey relieved.

So that meant that it was also Henry relieved and it was also Blue relieved.

 

* * *

 

Henry Cheng was not like Adam Parrish.

Definitively, he and Adam were similar: the father that left an uncomfortable amount of issues behind each memory, minor aggressions of discrimination turned into jokes and gags, feeling alone in a room full of people, and, he soon found out, a mother that held their wobbly affection.

Objectively, they were opposites. Henry was affluent where Adam was not. Adam was practical where Henry was helpless. Henry was involved in the Aglionby business where Adam tried very hard to keep it at arm’s length. Adam was abused domestically where Henry was kidnapped for entirely non-domestic reasons. Adam was magic where Henry was not. Adam and Gansey were best friends where Henry and Gansey were… something.

What did you call someone who helped you drive towards the place to find your dead sleeping king? What did you call someone you invited to a road trip with your girlfriend?

It was beside the point.

Henry was not jealous that he was not like Adam Parrish.

On an ordinary summer day, Gansey, Blue, and Henry had rounded back to Henrietta to drop off some stuff they had gotten from their trips down south. These varied from pictures both digital and physical to seashells to tan lines to things that reminded them of home and things that reminded them of each other (though the last two were often blurred together and confusing to Henry).

On that ordinary summer day, they all gravitated towards the Barns, seeing as this was their prime hangout once Monmouth had been sold, and Litchfield House had been deemed too far away, and Ronan’s new dream place had been deemed too much like a hike. They all felt lazy and tired in the familiar Henrietta heat, and the engine-less Camaro's air-conditioning was just as awful as the one that spewed smoke.

The Barns did not have the whole of Virginia’s heat. In fact, it was so cool and windy at the Barns that it struck Henry as such an obvious indicator that the whole valley was a dream. This close to the sun and not a single dried inch of grass. It was unfair and it was hard to leave.

Parrish and Lynch were both half-naked men hanging out in the open sunlight. Henry felt inexplicably inadequate and dizzy though it had been more of the whole day drive than it had been the mere presence of two attractive and half-naked men.

Blue laughed, “And just when I thought one tanning dick was enough, here comes two more.”

Ronan did not care enough to lift himself from the grass, but did care enough to flip Sargent off. Blue gave him a kick to the shin as greeting and revenge.

Adam sat up, grass sticking all over his front. Disgruntled, he dusted it off. “How was the traffic heading here?”

Gansey sat down, so Blue and Henry sat down as well. The five of them in these fields were something right, but still, in the presence of two attractive and half-naked men, Henry felt a little bit out of place.

It was in the way all of them seemed in tune to Gansey’s inserts to their anecdotes, the way Ronan did not bother to cover up the ginormous tattoo on his back, the way Adam leaned back like he was melting, the way Blue easily slapped Ronan’s back and delighted in the white mark her palm had left. They were all cogs in one machine that was the Ganseylike lot, well-oiled and hand-crafted, but Henry felt like the shiny new replacement.

Adam seemed to notice his isolation, and Henry felt creepily observed, though it did not feel like too much of a bad thing coming from Adam Parrish.

“How was the green car?” Adam asked Henry, and it was important to point out that it was Henry that Adam had asked, though the car belonged to Blue. The colors rambled around Henry’s head. Orange car, green engine, Blue owner.

“It’s amazing, never breaks down,” Henry smiled easily into his response, careful to keep it up now that he had everyone’s attention. “Really, the noise is so bad but when we sit on the hood by night lay-bys, it doesn’t even feel like we used it at all.”

Ronan hummed, still lying on his stomach, still nuzzling Adam’s knee, “Living the hobo lifestyle. Lay-by sleepovers and candy binging and all.”

Gansey said, “Ronan.”

Adam laughed. Henry smiled, genuinely. Adam looked at him in a meaningful way, and Henry felt like he was understood just then.

It was still a bit creepy. Henry would get used to it.

 

* * *

 

Henry Cheng was not like Noah Czerny.

Definitively, they were similar. According to Adele Czerny, her older brother had been incredibly manic and energetic and hyper, always running his mouth and never shutting up. Henry could relate. It was hard to shut up when he was trying to convince people to like him.

Objectively, Noah Czerny was long dead.

It was fairly simple: the Ganseylike lot had known Noah Czerny postmortem, in a way that they had not known Noah Czerny premortem. The Noah they knew was an apparition, but not a hallucination. Noah wanted to go on his own accord, Noah had been a crumpled little thing with no energy except when Blue was nearby or Ronan was planning something stupid, Noah had been Blue’s first kiss.

Henry Cheng was not like Noah Czerny, and he definitely was not jealous of Noah Czerny.

A year later, when Adam had been available to come back to Henrietta from college, when Ronan had all but sold his harvest from the Barns (really, it was still perplexing to think of Ronan Lynch as a farmer), and Blue and Gansey and Henry had all but bought Monmouth Manufacturing once more, to settle down into Henrietta again, because they would leave again for another round trip elsewhere but could never leave behind their origin, they all went to the ruined church that the Ganseylike lot had reburied Noah Czerny’s remains.

Henry had been around the lot enough to feel like a part of their well-oiled machine now, but the mystery of the paradox hypothetically presented before them still perplexed Henry a little.

They had all gathered around Gansey’s phone one night in a hotel room a little before they came back from their trip, with Ronan and Adam in the grainy video camera showing fireflies and fairy lights and Ronan’s soft edges and can of beer, and they’d discussed, together, Noah’s passing on.

What they got was not all Ronan throwing empty beer cans only to scold Opal to not chew on them, but also hypothetical situations, because this was what the Ganseylike lot did best: hypothesize.

“Maybe,” Ronan suggested, “he just faded away into the light.”

The sound of Adam elbowing him lightly was a hiss in Gansey’s phone speakers. “Cliché much, Lynch.” Ronan scoffed, it was also a hiss in Gansey’s phone speakers.

Gansey rubbed at his bottom lip, Blue leaning against the shoulder where Henry had not hooked his chin over to be seen by Ronan and Adam.

“When he spoke to us before I ran off towards the flock of ravens,” Gansey started. They were all listening intently. Henry saw it in the way that Adam and Ronan stared off, and in the way Blue stopped shaking her leg. Henry held his breath. “He sounded a bit familiar. I mean, the psychics do say time is circular, and they only see it partly through their sense, but Noah is a being living in that exact sense. It may as well be his only sense. And we’re connected by my death, so.”

“What are you saying?” Ronan asked, not aggressive or challenging, only curious. He sounded a little harsh, like Noah was still a raw wound even after seven years, now eight. Now that Henry considered the fact that the Ganseylike lot had all known Noah postmortem, he supposed it _was_ still a raw wound.

“That maybe Noah shifted through time, with his connection with Gansey,” Adam answered.

Gansey nodded. “I feel like it was him.” And again, they were all listening intently. Coincidences were rarely off with this lot, Henry had found out over time. “He was the one who set me off to find Glendower, whispered words into my dying ear and all that.”

They were all silent.

Finally, Blue said, “He brought us all together.”

 

And so they planned to meet at the ruined church.

“This place is just as creepy as I remembered,” Gansey remarked as they walked towards what was once the altar. This was Henry’s first time coming, but he could argue that holes were still way creepier than this old thing. Bias.

They found the mound of bones something less than bones. Henry did not find it creepy, because this was a place to put your respects.

Henry had not known Noah Czerny, had never heard his voice, only ever anecdotes. They all felt like secrets.

Once, Henry had been told to stay out of trouble, to keep his mother’s secrets and products the best he could. His mother would test him, and test him, and test him. It was one test of mettle after another. It was lowering himself into a hole he did not know to fear yet.

The stigma held tight like a rope that had knotted itself within him. His secrets were tethered easily with his fear, something he’d seen in Gansey to know which parts he could share.

With some gratitude, Henry felt fortunate to have met them all.

A chill came over him, then a voice in his head— or was it in his ear? “They’re a good lot.”

Henry whipped around to look behind him, then squinted in concentration to think if it was him or if it was someone else. Still, he did not find it creepy.

“What’s wrong?” asked Adam, ever observant.

Henry was not taken aback this time, but he was a bit defensive when he says with a smile, “Nothing. My instincts just say that you’re all a good lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated! My tumbler is [here](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com).


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